Told to Leave Her Home, a Teenage Mother Finds Help and Seeks Reconciliation

Lataja James with her son, Dillyn Martin, at the Elinor Martin Residence for Mother and Child, a shelter that took her in.Credit
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Lataja James had never expected the doctor delivering her blood-test results to tell her she was nine weeks pregnant.

Her mother’s response to the news was much less shocking, but packed just as potent a wallop.

“My mom just walked out of the room,” Ms. James, 18, recalled. “And when we got home, she told me to find somewhere to live because I wasn’t going to be living in her house. She wasn’t going to put up with the nonsense anymore.”

Ms. James acknowledged that her mother — who feared that her daughter’s streak of destructive behavior would result in pregnancy — had repeatedly warned her that the consequence would be banishment from their Bronx apartment.

“I was rebelling a lot, smoking and drinking, and not going to school,” Ms. James said, explaining that she began acting out at 13, shortly after the death of her father, who was serving life in prison for murder.

Eventually, other dreams and personal goals won out, inspiring Ms. James to get her life together. She became involved with volunteer activities and was selected for an all-expenses-paid trip to Nicaragua to help construct a school as part of the buildOn program. Preparation for that journey had been the very reason for the blood test in August 2011.

Denial struck hard, but after the doctor explained that blood did not lie, Ms. James learned her mother did not, either; her threats had not been empty. Ms. James had to find somewhere else to live within a matter of weeks.

Angry and dismayed, she took to the Internet, searching for women’s shelters, which yielded a result that would change the course of her life: the Elinor Martin Residence for Mother and Child in New Rochelle, N.Y., an affiliate of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York. She moved there within weeks of the blood test. The shelter, which opened in 1994, serves about 24 women and children a year, providing residents with meals, day care for their children and counseling.

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In February, Ms. James gave birth to a son, Dillyn Martin, and he has helped refocus her ambitions even more than her acceptance to the shelter, where the stays are not so much time-frame based as they are goal based. Ms. James said her goal was to finish high school and go to college.

“Because I wasn’t taking my education seriously when I was younger, I have a lot more catching up to do,” she said. The Elinor Martin Residence helped her enroll at New Rochelle High School, and she is on track to graduate in June. “I want to go to UConn and study criminal psychology, and Dillyn is my motivation,” she said.

Ms. James works 10 hours a week at Robeks, a smoothie bar, where she was recently promoted to shift leader, and earns about $260 a month. Because she has chosen to work, she does not receive a $315 monthly housing allowance given to many other shelter residents by the State Department of Social Services. As a result, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, drew $440 from the fund, putting $315 toward her July rent at the shelter and the remainder toward her August rent. Ms. James said she recently broke off her relationship with Dillyn’s father, but still has a wealth of support. “I really am grateful” for the Elinor Martin Residence, she said. “I’m surrounded by so many moms, and it’s like a family.”

As for her own family, Ms. James said she was working on mending her relationship with her mother, with the help of counseling offered at the residence. She said her mother was at the hospital when Dillyn was born and loves her grandson dearly.

Ms. James also believes that her experiences in the past year have proved to be more didactic than destructive to her future, and that they have imparted lessons that can improve the lives of not only her son, but also her siblings, who are younger.

“My brother and sister are part of my inspiration, too,” Ms. James said. “No one in my family graduated college or even graduated high school. Even though my choices weren’t wise, I feel like they can do so much better than me. I want them to be better than me.”

A version of this article appears in print on November 13, 2012, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Told to Leave Her Home, a Teenage Mother Finds Help and Seeks Reconciliation. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

This is the 106th annual campaign of The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, which will run from Oct. 15, 2017, to Jan. 12, 2018. The Fund has provided direct assistance to those struggling in New York and beyond.